My Own Gabriel
by Pandiichan
Summary: Set during X2. Meant to be a Oneshot. "My soul mate…" The Incredible Nightcrawler cooed to her in his hoarse rasp of voice, glinting fang tips lightly tapping against her neck.


**AN**: This may or may not stay up for long, just something I felt like writing. The title didn't really sit well with me, for this one, and I felt so frustrated that I finally picked it after a heavy debate yielding little name results. Thanks to my friends: icecreme0pii and callme0cheesepii for trying to assist with the title. Random oneshot. I own Sparkle and Necro (although my friend did create her information wise). Set a couple of days before the assassination attempt on the White House.

My Own Gabriel

Fleeing Munich had been smart for Kurt, he knew, after what had occurred at the circus in front of all those people. They wouldn't understand; his circus family was sad to watch him leave but none of that truly mattered…Amanda was long gone to him now, dating Werner. There was nothing left under the Big Top to keep him contemplating on staying, so with a last kiss to his doting, crying, worrying mother's forehead, he disappeared, only a blanket of thinly stretched brimstone substance was left behind for them to hold while they still could. Kurt Wagner had teleported madly, looking for a sanctuary when all of the places he'd stop to settle in brought him nothing but a few quick seconds of prayer before another discovery. Another riot.

Only so much screaming could go on in His house before Kurt, himself, grew tired of the antics. True he now lived in mild contentment before the grace of God in his blanket of seclusion, but something was missing. He'd devoted himself thoroughly to only His wisdom, never questioning Him in all of His divine knowledge, and yet, the routine was wearing thin for the creature of God. Instead of hanging from the rafters of his Boston church to shout German at the loitering boys adamant on catching him, turning him in, he turned on the holo watch able to hide his honest image and walked calmly out of the desolate church. It had been a few hours too long since he'd last ate something filling, and The Incredible Nightcrawler could stand the growling stomach no longer.

Margali had been sweet enough, his dear mother, to tuck some cash away in his coat the night before when he mentioned leaving again, and he'd found it in his outside right pocket; rubbing the crisp bills tenderly between his two phantasm fingers and three real ones. He promised his whining stomach that he'd stop when coming across the first food-giving facility he could find, and he did. _Mugsy's _buzzed quietly in the regular white neon lighting as he softly pushed open the front door, walking past a see-through foyer of glass panes to only be halted by a vast wooden sign with ornate carvings declaring 'Wait to be seated'. Out of habit The Incredible Nightcrawler stuffed his hands in his outside coat pockets, and in doing that he found another present pressing against his left flank that Margali had craftily stowed away; fingering the outline of the object Kurt could tell it was of medium length and thick for width. It had to be a book, that's the only thing coming to mind of such an odd shape lying beneath his fingers, as his mother knew he liked to read almost as much as he adored praying.

A woman who couldn't be but—maybe—a year younger than him finally stopped by the alcove, smiling politely and gesturing with the slightest incline of her white-gloved hands to follow him. Her manner of dress was odd, and Kurt couldn't help but stare as she led him to a back booth that had just become vacant. Where everyone adorned skirts and black shirts for tops and a smock of sorts tied about the middle she had none. It seemed as if she'd been plucked from some bedtime story book he often read the circus children before sleep, what with her stark blonde hair that wasn't true platinum or a full, rich, wholesome brunette shade, and her peach colored skin, the neatly applied moonstone-white makeup to her blue-green eyes. "I know you from somewhere," Kurt wanted to whisper, sure as He did die on the cross that she was someone he'd encountered before; but he did not want to startle her, so refrained to sit placidly in his booth as she set a menu before him.

_Victoria…_her name tag shimmered as she lightly patted the table in comfort, briefly excusing herself with a promise to return as the mid-back length flax of her honey hair was pushed to one side of her neck. Kurt took the leave with a feeling of security, this seclusion embracing him, and extracted the mystery artifact from inside his coat. It was the circus family scrapbook, from when he was just a little boy. So many acts had come and gone since he'd grown and lived to captivate the crowds with his truly satanic form, and there was always one he remembered the most. She had a spot right in the front of his book, as his mother had promised the day his world came crashing into ruins at her departure.

"The Little Sparkle" they'd called her, because she too was just a child when she and her father had rolled in to Munich from some British area. They were both mutants and had heard through trusted, disguised sources, that the Munich circus could house them without persecution. After all, it was easy to cover up your mutant status if you could work it into an act. Her coverage came fairly well, she was quite enamored with dance, and even more so with singing, music; Sparkle was often known to tap dance of free will whenever the urge came over her, and hum a little tune of accompaniment. A flitting smile wiggled Kurt's hidden blue lips at the memory, fingers brushing over the laminated and sacred page with the faded poster some twelve years old.

_At first he couldn't hear the rhythmic tapping of her little feet hiding inside the white boots only fit for what seemed to be infantile feet, but then he found her. The tapping grew—as did Kurt's curiosity—and he finally saw her; simply grinning and humming to herself he watched her feet click and stomp across the dirty ground. "Vhat are you doing? Besides making noise…" his tail swished to the left of her fine blonde hair, the prehensile thing with a mind of its own often liked to zip through the feathery locks just to annoy her. He'd never seen such a sight, nor a child as blonde as she. Her musical feet stopped and she looked up at him, the white powder on her face glittering in the sun._

"_I'm dancin'," Sparkle announced in her childish British voice. "'aven't you ever danced before?"_

"_I don't dance. I do tightrope walk, no dance."_

"_Fancy you should try it then? I like it, its loads of fun. Makes me feel happy. You could stand to be a lit'le happier, you know. You hardly ever smile."_

"_I do so smile," Kurt narrowed his eyes and hopped down from his perch (a slim tree nearby) and landed with a crouch on the earthy ground. "You are ze one that does not smile at me."_

"_Oh I smile at you; you just don't look at me. You look at the ground like its much more fascinating." okay, he was guilty of that habit. Usually people didn't keep eye contact with him too long on account of his bright eyes. They were a yellow-amber where most people stood as having green, brown, or blue. Hers, however, had been a mix of green and blue in both eyes and she kept his stare for however long he liked. Her dancing gradually increased in rhythmic speed and tone again, the conversation no longer hindering her as she pirouetted to the left of him with an utterly innocent and uncaring smile; it was their childhood, and he shouldn't have forsaken it as he had with his somewhat stubborn insistence upon maturity._

_That's when he caught sight of her ability. Dancing in the sun, where it usually began, he saw what seemed to be a convoy of fireflies followed her as she spun. There were not fireflies. Her skin emitted a golden glitter of sorts, that danced around her and caused the little girl to sparkle until the tapping stopped; when the musicality of her feet halted, the glitter would disperse itself like an outline and attach to her, collecting in her hands and settling on her face as if it had never existed. She was like a second sun, one on earth, standing on the very ground he could walk on._

_Her eyes were overcome in a honey glow as her breathing finally stabilized. Clapping her hands together the glitter jumped off of her skin, swirling around in her fingers until three large orbs of shimmering wonderment slowly absorbed into one another and exploded gently, golden butterflies fluttered quickly away. "I get my powers from the sun…" The Little Sparkle whispered, blinking the eyelids tattooed with natural white glitter. "Dad says so, the light is real but the butterflies are fake. He says I'm gonna be able to do something amazing one day, if I can keep practicing."_

"_It vill make good circus show." Kurt nodded, looking around to see if any of the glitter could be viewed on the ground. Nope, it all seemed to dissipate and return back to her._

"_Are you ever scared, Kurt, of what you can do?" Sparkle looked at the ground, roughing a bit of dirt near her toe into a small mountain. He blinked curiously. There had been times when he didn't know how he did what he did, but he was never truly afraid of himself. Only mystified; amazed that God loved him enough to give him such wonderful talents, unaware that years later, he would be praying to the very same God he admired and wondering why he'd done this to one of his own children._

"_Nein. Vhy? Are you?"_

"_Quite. I dance so I don't have to be scared of it. I've had nightmares where I don't know what to do and the light comes out of my eyes, my hands…dancing seems to keep it from happening." his tail swished, clocking her lightly in the right side of the head. It was an encouraging tap from the demon-esk child._

"_Even zou I walk through ze valley of ze shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are vith me…" He'd often recited such things to her. Margali said he had a knack for cheering others up through His word._

"_So you think I'll be okay?" Sparkle now sat, pulling one of her little dress out around her properly as she'd been raised to do once she sat. Kurt noticed how it always engulfed her legs and feet to the point of nothingness past the fabric of it and pondered if that was a custom where she came from._

"_Yes. Ve vill both be okay, though ve still have a lot to learn about vhat ve can do. God is vith us, and vill not forsake us, for ve are his children."_

"_Amen." seemed to be the only reply she was capable of. Kurt smiled at her._

"_Yes, amen." _

"Sir? Your order?" the flashback to his beginning circus days had almost put Kurt in a peaceful doze, one void of a starving stomach. His eyes flittered beneath the glasses he swore to wear, to cover up his estranged eyes, and he fumbled with the menu. "Woah, woah, take your time. The world won't end right on the spot if you don't order at the minute."

"You…" Kurt's eyes narrowed behind the shades, "You are British." _She was_, he thought. This woman couldn't be her, though. Twelve years…and she was about seven when she left, so maybe? No...it just didn't seem like Sparkle. Perhaps the woman waiting on his beck and call simply knew how to apply her makeup.

"Quite right you are; good ear, sir. Now, what can I get you to eat?"

"A steak vould be nice. Medium cook, please."

"And to drink?"

"A vater will do."

"Right-o, then. I'll be out with your order as soon as possible. I'll fetch your drink in moment." He hadn't realized that he'd been hiding the book from her. The page displaying Sparkle, maybe that woman's old childhood acting poster, was inaccessible to her eyes. Kurt didn't even really know if she'd honestly tried to look, but nonetheless, he kept the book only a rich secret for himself. The water was gently set before the open scrapbook and Sparkle's hand barely fluttered over the page. "You used to be in the circus?"

"Yes, a long time ago." Kurt replied as slowly, she sat, cautious and softly sinking in to the booth seat. "Vhy? Did you?" Kurt scrutinized her. It had to be Sparkle, he'd never misplace the blonde hair he'd so often tortured, pulled. Her shoulders slightly stooped with her exhale and the woman looked at the floor for a few minutes, one hand blindly searching for the book again. Baby tears seemed to come from her eyes and Kurt stuffed the hand deep into his jacket, the one that wanted to wipe her tears away, as they gently clashed with the table; spots of gold began to appear on the polished brown surface.

"This is my old poster…" her gloved thumb ran gently along the protective page as she pushed the appendage across her own glittering eyes. Everything was faded about the picture, the color, the smile, and most certainly her ability to be happy about what gifts she'd been granted by the Alpha and Omega. His voice caught in his throat as if someone had stuffed a gag deep down in his mouth and he was currently suffering from asphyxiation. Suffocating before her, such a cruel fate, when in childhood he could never keep his mouth shut around her. Before Amanda, even though he'd told not a soul, there had always been her; Amanda was doomed to be entangled with Werner, and his mother had always claimed she was his Gabriel.

His own personal message from Him, for Kurt. Kurt remembered the talk with his mother well, he was only eight, and Sparkle herself two days from moving.

"_But Mama, why are zey moving?"_

"_Bad people are coming after them, liebling. Zey must do it to keep zem safe from ze bad people."_

"_Vhy not stay here, though? Ve could all protect zem. Ze good guys alvays vin!"_

"_You have been watching your Errol Flynn movies again, haven't you?"_

"_Mama, zat is not ze point!" Kurt's face flushed and he knew he'd been caught. Usually whenever he felt to be in the heroic mood Errol Flynn was to blame. That was his idol, his inspiration, and the main source of energetic encouragement he got to practice his routines without complaint."Vhen she goes avay I know I vill feel sad…" Margali sighed and knelt down to him, cupping his small, confused blue face in her hands. _

"_People vill alvays leave you, but you know vhy she is special?"_

"_Because she is my friend?"_

"_She is your Gabriel, little one. Gabriel always returns to the son of God. She vill be back, my little one. You vill see…" _

"_But if she is ze Archangel, zen I must be the demon…" He did have a spade-tipped tail. Kurt clenched the tail in his small hands, frowning down at the floor. Like most angels, too, in the books the circus members found, she had blonde hair._

"_No, liebling. She is ze messenger from God who is telling you to keep your faith, to keep praying. She is His signal for you to believe and to have hope. God loves all of his children, and so He vill send Gabriel back to you again, in your time of need."_

So by rights of his own mother's claim, she was his. His Gabriel. In this time more than any other, he could not think her presence more important. For days past something had been gnawing at him through the horrendous mobs and riots to have almost done him in, something worse was to come. Another waitress had brought him his ordered food, Sparkle herself being pulled from his eyesight by a second worker.

He saw fear mar her face and she quickly stumbled to the back, disappearing for a good ten minutes. Kurt left enough cash to cover the bill and a few dollars worth as a tip, staggering after her. Something in the air felt very wrong, and Gabriel could not go into the world unprotected…even if he was more a Satan apparent at first glance than a creature at His disposal to help the others around him. Oddly enough, perhaps from his own influence upon her as children, he found Sparkle just rushing through the empty expanse of church to shield her from the three teens running after her; a premature mob born to fail, especially since he'd seen them before they saw him. Time to begin his show; people of this area had come to fear him just as they had in Munich, so a simply appearance, a simple shout would send them running, but maybe he needn't yell in German to scare them off, perhaps English would have a better effect.

"I am a demon," He began, the brimstone fragrant blanket of smoke fluttering away to the winds around him. Rising from his crouch and turning off the hologram, staring the three down with his twinkling yellow eyes glittering with an insane amusement, Kurt followed his unwritten script, "I am ze devil incarnate! Leave this place." one of the boys sniggered at him. His tail danced in agitation, ready to coil around the human ankle and send the body flying. Were they not scared?

"Then why are you before the house of Christ, mutie?" the word 'mutie' made his nose crinkle in dislike. One of the latest slangs for 'mutant' that indicated neither of these three men had an intention of letting him live in their own foolish plans of trying to kill any mutants they ran across. "We just want the girl mutie that ran inside. She and one of her lady friends did something dishonorable to a couple of our pals." they began to pat their instruments lightly against their open palms and Kurt couldn't help but smile.

"Zen I'm sure they deserved it." one instrument swung wide, a lead pipe with a smaller L pipe attachment, something good for shattering bones. Kurt caught the instrument in his hand, frightening the boy with the sight of his animal-like nails and wrenched the weapon from him with ease, curling it in his tail. Briefly, he was reminded of his circus days with Amanda. She was the monk trying to exorcise the Devil (himself) and expel him from within the ring. A playful joke.

Perhaps he could tweak that and repel them from the angel inside. "You cannot have her."

"Why not? Got something going on with her? A little mutie-on-mutie action, freak?"

"I am ze devil incarnate! Gabriel is mine, I have ripped off her vings and made her live as a human. She belongs to me." and then there was one. The last one, a smaller boy in comparison to the other two, had really seemed to be listening to his malice-coated words of play and had backed off considerably since his two comrades lay groaning on the ground before the church.

"Why?" he asked in a soft, terrified whisper. The Incredible Nightcrawler stopped short; there was no reason to hurt him, as he was not fighting back. What did he ask 'why' to, he wasn't sure, but he could only assume it was concerning his fictitious tale of 'Gabriel's' despair. Nightcrawler crept close, tail curling and flailing amusedly as he was close enough for the boy to see the whites of his eyes and the luminescent lemony orbs coloring them. He let lose the smallest of grins, his slightly yellow teeth glinting like diamonds in the moonlight, pointed tips highlighted.

"Vhen you rip the vings of an angel off, they cannot fly. Vhen an angel cannot fly, zen zey are weak. Vhen an angel is veak, and Satan is feeling bored…he takes zem." the color drained from the boy's face and Nightcrawler withheld the laugh desperately tickling his insides. "And I never give zem back." He whispered so nicely into the boy's ear, his words hissing lightly with the sinewy impression of Satan's dark desire seeping through, "So I vould suggest you run, as you have lost one ze Archangels to me, you won't be so lucky in a fight." in an instant the boy was gone, weapon clattering to a stop on the street before Nightcrawler as he watched the youth run for his life. Kurt finally allowed the laugh to run untamed from his blue lips and instantly looked down with the usual uncertain flutter of his eyes between the concrete of the outside world and to the face of his Gabriel emerging from her knelt stance off the second boy, hands no longer glowing. How foolish he felt, but his cheeks were charged with fluster and fun of the event. "Vhat are you doing?" Kurt asked curiously, noting the cross dangling from her trembling fingers as the blue green eyes twinkled with such a mix of emotions he couldn't dare describe them.

"I…I remember you." She breezed from the two unconscious bodies, a little afraid since the face before her had changed so, in the last twelve years, until her shaky bare hands rested softly against his carved cheeks. "The signs of Archangel Gabriel…"

"…To man, these are his symbols." Kurt lightly brushed the right hand tracing the scarred swirls of the ruins on his face. Her fingers floated sensually down every blemish, mocking the twists and turns that had taken him careful precision to create, until she began to cry at the sight of such holy markings. Sparkle was so overcome with tears that Kurt's gentle strum of his own blue fingers across her face could do nothing to catch or quell them. Her arms wrapped around him, the head pressing into his chest as she continued to weep before the house of God. Finally, when her sobbing had subsided she lit a smile for him, the fingers returning to the ruins upon his face in all their unique and conglomerated gathering of shapes, she found her words, things that he had taught her when they were just children.

"He that has clean hands, and a pure heart; He that has not lifted up his soul to vanity, nor sworn deceitfully, He shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever." Kurt smiled at the reciting of some of the Psalms sayings. Gently, he took the hand of Victoria Fairbridge, his lost Sparkle, and led her to the steps of at least one place that would always welcome them. Safely inside, consumed by the dark Kurt lit his traditional one candle at the far back right corner of those sitting in a box at the end of the alter and took her in his arms, dangling them from the rafter.

"I know many nights," the circus child whispered as he gazed at her, the common flitting of his golden orbs she'd used to tease him about occurring, "I vould sit here and say verses eighteen through tventy-one of Psalms 25 as I prayed for you." his fingers brushed smoothly down the porcelain of her arm. Only in the darkness could he find the strength to continue staring at her; any other time, like when they were children, he was nervous of holding eye contact for long due to insecurities, but now he could do it free reign and with untendered guilt. She was beautiful to him, just as radiant as Gabriel, but locked in the tepid female flesh; and once did it ever cross his mind that she may even be too radiant for he, the likely demon to stare upon what could very well be an angel walking across the earth that man and mutant alike shared. Now being older, he knew the thought of her as an angel was simply of his own doing, and that she was just someone he'd come to be taken with. He pulled out the small red bible, a miniature version of one that could not always be found where he went, and his long fingernails carefully thumbed through the tissue-paper thin pages aged of time and use.

Victoria felt the goose bumps creep along her neck as he held her softly in his arms, his right hand pointing out the words of God and making her follow along as his lips ghosted along her skin in annunciation. The lips of the demon were forever near, but the words of God ever closer.

**25:18-21**

_Look at my affliction and my pain; and forgive all my sins._

_Consider my enemies; for there are many; and they hate me with their cruel hatred._

_O keep my soul, and deliver me: let me not be ashamed; for I put my trust in you._

_Let integrity and uprightness preserve me; for I wait on you._

"And I have waited a long time, mein seelenfreund." She had never picked up enough German to survive in the circus. Kurt could even recall on simply "free days" of the circus, intermissions of sorts, between slotted shows, when he would teach the world around her in a different tongue. Such admiration seeped from her, such loving light in her minty green eyes, an admiration he knew that could extend to both man and mutant all the same. However, he did like to think it came to him more than any other. Why?

Because, however much he tried to deny it, he was always a man of God in need of Gabriel. "My soul mate…" The Incredible Nightcrawler cooed to her in his hoarse rasp of voice, glinting fang tips lightly tapping against her neck. The woman in his arms twisted so until her dishwater-blonde hair became lightly matted between her own peachy cheek and his misshapen choice of clothes. Fistfuls of his apparel lodged beneath her fingernails as the illumined Sparkle created light in her free hand to catch the contours of his indigo face and smiled fully at the creature staring fixatedly, almost in constricted awe, of her light-making ability. Her nose grazed his blue one, the words so delicately shipped off the start of her own lips to reach across and caress his, watching the enlarged pupil of both his honey eyes mirror the glowing glory of His gift to the world.

"O divine master grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console…" Sparkle remembered all of the times when Kurt had comforted her, even as children. She, in turn, had done the same when various words speared him so, in mid flight of his wonderful trapeze routine. When he'd all but gracefully descended to her side after the show was over, pieces of him were taken from her own hand and set back into place upon the poor boy. "…to be understood as to understand." what an enigma this blue male was before her now, Victoria remembered the perfectly innocent and odd face of the mutant, her first true friend, and could almost call it separate, save for the haunting yellow eyes living in a field of scars. Such effervescent beauty of His on Nightcrawler's face that she could almost begin to weep again at the sight, black scars raised and hard against the otherwise silky fur growing from his blue skin.

"To be loved as to love with all my soul," Kurt finally spied her pure white gloves resting on the back pew, surprised he'd not seen them earlier, and kept his trembling eyes trained to the woman reciting the word of God to him. She truly was his Gabriel, just as Margali had foretold. "For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned…" she seemed to be indicating the markings holding true to all of his sins for which he was still atoning. Kurt knew God continued to present him with ample opportunity to redeem himself for each one, the carvings upon his blue flesh a simple reminder of his bond to Him, and found her gentle tracings the sweetest lullaby without words. "And it is in dying that we are born into eternal life."

"Amen." He'd found the strength to hoarsely whisper, as if listening to the divine scripture of His drained him wonderfully so and left him a feather in her grasp. Perhaps someone really had ripped her wings off, and sent her down to earth to save him; to confide in him the seed of eternal trust in Christ so that he may survive in a world flooded with hate. His faith was eternal in the Lord, and it would be so forever, so long as he had the messenger with him to keep him on the path. "Amen…" the word refused to leave his lips, as if continuing to say it could deeper set the amazing words she'd given only to him, and convince God that it was not a sin to kiss His angelic messenger. Kurt had waited twelve painful years to taste her lips; lacking a description of such a thing in the Bible Margali had gifted to him, and now knew that another carving would soon require his attention. The sweet honey pouring over his lips, burning and dancing in his mouth, must be something stolen, or some sort of treasure wrongfully pillaged, and he held it in his arms, away from the eyes of man.

"_And it is in dying that we are born into eternal life."_

Regardless of her angelic tone the fearful words had send paranoid stems into his brain, increasing the feeling that something was bound to go wrong. Despite the fact his would-be Gabriel laid safely in his arms, consoling him at least a little, he found the insanity of fear overwhelming. Why should he have reason to fear in the house of God except to fear the infinite wisdom of His being? Victoria yawned and he lightly gave her descent from the rafter, via his tail (which was more than enough to hold her) and began to slip on her gloves, Kurt kneeling to pray before a marble statue of the Lord. Shortly after finishing he found a reason for fear: man; three men, two holding a gun and one rather portly leader with slicked back, graying hair and a matching beard.

"Hello, Kurt Wagner."

"Vhat do you want?" He began to madly teleport around the church, taking Sparkle in his arms, as they dared hold their guns up in a place of sanctity such as this.

"I want to talk to you and your little friend." shouting devilish obscenities in German would do no good. They already had him. He quickly teleported them out of the church, knowing the odd hunters were not far behind. Escaping to two adjacent roofs and then leaping madly across the free air to summersault in landing at the back of an alleyway he pressed his favored crimson rosary and silver cross into her folding fingers.

"Zey vill come looking for me before zey think to look for you." forgetting of his past sin—in his mind, it was a sin—he committed it thrice, before glancing wildly around the alleyway and teleporting with her again, hanging outside of Mugsy's. "Go, go inside. Pretend to vork, they cannot take you before ze public eye."

"But what about you? They'll come and get you and—" his spade-tipped tail curled around her, the spade laying dormant aside from the light twitch running like a shock down the three and a half inch long tail. Victoria Fairbridge gave out a sigh, fingers curling around his indigo tail as Nightcrawler let go of the wall and tipped her head up to stare into golden eyes. He didn't have much time; he could hear their angry voices shouting down the streets for them. "I had to leave once, and it took us twelve years to meet back up…do you think I honestly want to leave for another twelve years? Leave you all by yourself? Kurt, if you don't mind me saying so…you were an insecure wreck when I left!"

"Zat may be so," The Incredible Nightcrawler agreed, nodding his head, "but I can assure you zat twelve years will not go between us again. I am a man of God, and I vill always be praying." his fingers ran delicately down her face, relishing the peach satin just as a bullet burrowed into the wall between them, an unmeant growl escaping him. "Gabriel vill hear me, and tell God. He vill hear you, and tell God. He vill hear us all, and then God can guide us from there. Have faith." He shoved her through the back door and let the bullet sink into his right shoulder, not willing to run in case they tried to go into the facility and search for Sparkle. Before the three men got to him, Kurt said a hasty prayer, pushing a thick scrapbook behind the dumpster pressed just so against the restaurant wall. The two men took him by his arms, treated him like an animal, and waited with him in cuffed custody while the larger man called a car to look a little less conspicuous to take him who knew where. Kurt didn't.

"Goodbye, my little Gabriel. May God rest with your soul…" Nightcrawler turned his head a fraction in the morning light; a gray and dreary sky hanging over him, as he saw the tiny bare hand of someone he now knew to be safe get taken away by a human man. His tail curled around the cross attached to his belt and he began to pray as the city scene faded from his view. "Protect Sparkle, Lord, in all your infinite way, in all of ze things you are still doing for us here, as we try and find you…to hold onto you…please protect her." He hung his head, knowing if he tried to teleport he would drag all of these confining chains with him. It would be even easier to be apprehended, then, and beaten, possibly killed. Here, he was safer…at least, for the moment.

"I vill return to you, my little Gabriel." perhaps he wasn't as lost as he'd been led to believe…how often did God hand out Gabriel to those in need? Certainly to one such as him? "My own Gabriel…" he mused at the idea, smiling up at God through the impermeable iron roof of the armored car. He'd never thought of her like that before, in spite of seeing her as something ethereal compared to himself. The dream brought him sleep in the cold back of the strange car, the demon curling up as it seemed to grow colder until he passed into sweet slumber from numbing clouds of breath finally coating him, a fog to paste over the nightmare until it went away; Lord had not forgotten the mutant laying patiently in wait for the loving arms of compassion to reach him, the freezing blue thing with chapped lips muttering from the realm of sleep the sweetest, simple him as the truck rocked him back in forth and undisturbing of his dream, "Sparkle, little Sparkle. Gabriel, sweet Gabriel."


End file.
